


Fight or Flight

by Mals86



Series: Fight or Flight Series [1]
Category: Warrior (2011)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Friendship, teenage romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 16:26:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1233283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mals86/pseuds/Mals86
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Freshman prodigy" wrestler Tommy Conlon has a lot to lose when he and his mother escape his abusive, alcoholic father to drive across the country and start a new life. His brother is only one of the things he loses. Even making a new, good friend in Tacoma isn't enough to change things, not really.</p><p>This fic covers a timeframe stretching from shortly before Tommy and Mrs. Conlon leave Pittsburgh until the time Tommy enlists in the Marines, approximately 3 years.  BTW, this is NOT the Tommy of the TLRH series. Completely different story arc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Killer Instinct

**Author's Note:**

> The fight-or-flight response, also known as the acute stress response, refers to a physiological reaction that occurs in the presence of something that is terrifying, either mentally or physically.

Tommy Conlon grabbed his duffel bag out of the back seat, popped open the passenger side door of the Oldsmobile and hopped out, heading up the cement steps at a fast clip. "Where's the fire, kiddo?" Pop called from the car, but he was amused instead of pissed off, so Tommy kept going. Straight into the house, through the living room, into the kitchen, right to Mom, who was just turning away from the sink in surprise.

"You're back," she said, happy, and Tommy ran right at her, dropping the bag on the floor.

"I won!" He picked her up and spun her around, ignoring her little squeal. "I won, I won!"

"I know, honey," she said, still smiling, as he set her down and she straightened her dress. "I know, it was on TV. We taped it." She reached up to kiss his cheek. "I'm so proud of you. One step closer to that scholarship, isn't it?"

"Hope so. Three more years to wrestle – I wanna win 'em all." Mom laughed, and he looked around. "Where's Brendan?" Usually his brother was right there to congratulate him after a match. Brendan would probably commiserate with him if he lost, but that hadn't been necessary so far. And anyway, it just didn't feel right to not have Brendan's grin in his face, Brendan's thump on his shoulders.

Mom nodded toward the dining room. "Doing homework with a friend." The front door opened, and Mom went to greet Pop. Tommy grabbed the thing out of his duffel bag and went into the dining room, wondering why Brendan would be doing homework on the Sunday afternoon after the state wrestling tournament, and who he'd be doing it with.

_Oh. That Girl._

But there was Brendan, getting up from the table and coming toward him, and Tommy hugged him big. Everything, good or bad, was always better with Brendan's arms around him. "Good job, little bro," Brendan said. They were the right words, and Brendan's smile was proud as always, but something about his voice seemed off. Like he was tired, or something.

"Got you a little something," Tommy said, unfolding the tournament t-shirt he'd bought his brother with his own money. If Brendan couldn't make it there on his own – he'd lost, by points, at Regionals and come in third in his weight class – then the least Tommy could do was share the experience somehow. "Woulda been more fun if you'd made it to States, but I thought you might like this anyway. And maybe you can make it next year."

"Oh thanks," Brendan said flatly, losing his smile, and Tommy pulled up short, blinking. What had he said wrong? Brendan was so touchy these days.

And then Pop was in the dining room with them, one arm around Mom's waist, asking, "And who's _this?_ " in that tone he got when anybody visited.

"Pop," Brendan said, and let go of Tommy. "This is Tess Mahoney. We – we're working on a project for history class. Tess, this is my dad."

The girl stood up, smiled, and offered her hand to shake. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Conlon."

"No, no, my pleasure," Pop said, with a smile for her. "Carry on with that project, then. How about some fresh coffee, woman?" he said to Mom.

"Comin' right up," Mom said, and went back in the kitchen.

"You see Tommy's medal?" Pop asked Brendan, gesturing. He put his arm around Tommy's shoulders and squeezed. " _That's_ my boy." Pop's pride was about the best feeling in the world, and Tommy couldn't keep the grin off his face.

"Hard not to," Brendan said. He smiled, but it was only a mouth smile. "It's pretty shiny."

"You shoulda had one a' those," Pop said to Brendan. "If you'd trained a little harder, put some effort in like your brother."

From the kitchen, Mom called, "Paddy? You want cream and sugar, or just sugar?" and Pop nodded to them and went into the kitchen.

"Only _you_ would wear that all the way home in the car," Brendan said to Tommy.

"What's wrong with that?" Tommy asked, feeling somehow that the pleasure had gone out of coming home victorious. It didn't feel right, Brendan not being happy for him. Brendan more interested in some girl, that felt weird and wrong.

Brendan shook his head and didn't answer the question. There was a brief silence, while Tommy just looked at Brendan, trying to figure out what had his brother's shorts in a wad. The girl looked at Brendan. Brendan stared down at the papers on the table, his mouth sort of pinched up. The girl turned her head back to Tommy. "Hi," she said. "Congratulations." Then she poked Brendan's elbow, and Brendan finally looked back up.

"Oh. Yeah. Tess, this is my brother Tommy. You know Tess, don't you, Tommy?"

Of course Tommy knew Tess Mahoney. Knew _of_ her, anyway. She was one of the prettiest cheerleaders at Taylor Allderdice High School: blonde hair, long legs, big toothpaste smile. Everybody liked her. There were bathroom stall door messages written in Sharpie about how dozens of guys wanted to wear her like a collar, but she wouldn't put out. Too pure. Nice Catholic girl. Brendan had had a crush on her for, like, _ever_.

And by the way Tess Mahoney was smiling at Brendan, she had a crush on him too. _She_ was the reason Brendan had slacked off on his training over the last month. _She_ was the reason Tommy'd gotten a C in English, because Brendan usually helped him with his homework when Pop went overboard with Tommy's training, but Bren hadn't been around much lately. He was over at Tess' house studying (studying, yeah, _right_ ), or at her church's youth group, or at a party with her.

Tommy, suddenly feeling left out and hollow, feeling too young and too skinny and not good-looking enough for a girlfriend, lied out loud. "No," he said, flat and rude like he didn't care. If Brendan was going to be an asshole about the tournament and spend all his free time with somebody not family, he could go piss up a tree. _Great, now I'm going to have to confess to lying and using profane language. And jealousy._

Tess Mahoney's Crest smile slid right off her face, and Brendan narrowed his eyes. "Well. Tommy, this is Tess." The tone of his voice said, _And you better shape up and treat her nice, too, or you'll regret it._

Fine, he'd play along. Make nicey-nice with That Girl. "Pleasure to meet you, Tess." He realized that he'd been balling up the new t-shirt in his hands, crumpling it, ever since Brendan had started making snarky remarks, and tried to smooth it out.

Mom came up behind him and ruffled his hair. "I made you some brownies. You kids want some?"

 _Brownies, my favorite, awesome_. Tommy, moving to hug Mom again, saw Brendan make a face. Brendan didn't really like brownies – who doesn't like _brownies?_ – and he'd always rather have peanut butter cookies. "Yes, please. And some milk."

"I'd love a brownie, thanks, Mrs. Conlon," That Girl said. She was being really nice, pretending she didn't feel the tension in the room, and Tommy was halfway to giving her an approving nod before he remembered the code: _Just us. We keep ourselves to ourselves. We don't need anybody's nose in our business_. It had been second nature since the time Mom had to go to the hospital, when Tommy was five, and the social services people started nosing around. It was the code, the Conlon code, and Brendan seemed poised to break it for That Girl. Tommy glared at his brother.

"Milk and brownies all around, then," Mom said, and kissed him again. "Gotta feed my boys. You hungry, Tommy?"

Before Tommy could even answer her, Brendan snorted out loud. "When is he not?"

"Brendan," Mom said, mildly reproving. "I mean, do you want something else before the brownie, Tommy?"

"No, we ate a pretty good lunch on the way back from Hershey. But thank you. Just brownie, please. Can I have two, though?"

"No," Pop said from the kitchen. "Too much sugar. You know the rules, Tom."

"Can't I take the week off? As a, you know, celebration?" Tommy had been hoping for that. He knew that most of the high school athletes got a few days of rest after a big competition, before going back to serious training. Most Olympic athletes, too, they could take a week off heavy training before getting back to the grind.

"You got Junior Olympics comin' up," Pop said. "No can do, son."

"Juniors is in July. The _end_ of July," Tommy protested. That was more than four months away. "Not even a couple of days?"

"Four months, Paddy," Mom said, cajoling. "You always say you can do a lot of conditioning in a short period of time."

"You tellin' me what to do?" It wasn't quite Pop's warning voice, but it was heading in that direction.

"Not at all," Mom said calmly. "I just know you two do a good job together, and you always say good work should be rewarded."

"Winning's the reward," Pop pointed out. "But fine. Against my better judgment, you can have a coupla days off. We go hard again Thursday morning, kiddo, got me?"

"Yes sir." Tommy caught That Girl giving him a sympathetic look, and it stung. _Who do you even think you are?_ he thought furiously in her direction.

* * *


	2. Update, Notice, and Apology

I know, this update isn't really an update. I had hoped, at one time, to have posted the final 6 chapters of this story by the end of this year.

However, please bear with me a minute. I wanted to explain that I would be removing most of my multi-chapter fics from this site and from Fanfiction net. The reason is that one of my bestest writer-buddies, Wynter S. Komen, just found out that someone had STOLEN her story, "In the Land of Gods and Monsters," from Fanfiction, changed some details, and published it as a Kindle ebook. For sale. For money. In fact, not one but two different people (or the same person with two different pen names) stole her story and published it, and profited from someone else's work.

And while I am beyond grateful to both Fanfiction and Archive of Our Own for providing a platform and an outlet for those of us who love stories to share them, free, out of our hearts, I'm no longer willing to risk having stories stolen and sold. I will be leaving my profile here, as well as my two short fics and the first chapters of my longer fics, but everything else will be removed.

I'm sorry.

I'm hurt, too. I am proud of these stories I've posted here, and sad that they're going to be tucked away and not read anymore. I know that if you've come here to read this story, you're disappointed too. I am still enormously glad that I've met so many terrific readers and writers through the fanfiction sites, and I am thankful every day for the opportunity I had to share stories.

It's killing me to take this fic down, as I'm leaving Tommy and Ali, as well as readers, hanging. I hate that. I hate it especially because I've promised myself to finish this fic. However, if you managed to get to Chapter 49 and would like to receive the final six chapters, please send me a private message with your email address (I won't sell it, share it, or do anything mean with it), and I will email them to you as they are written. _*Don't* post your email address in comments here, please, the spambots will steal it and you'll be getting email for Viagra and the latest bank scam for the next twelve million years._

I will not be posting any new stories or resurrecting the ones I've removed. I feel that this chapter of my writing life has closed – and we all know that feeling, don't we? Where you're satisfied by the happily-ever-after part but sad that it's finally arrived. I'll be pursuing publication of my original works, at this point.

I want to wish you all continued happy reading on this site. If you'd like to contact me, please do – I will be reachable at wynn AT wynnguthrie DOT com (sorry about the bot-defeating strategy there).


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